


Mere Color

by eadunne2



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Art, Artist Steve Rogers, Boys Kissing, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Jealousy, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Short & Sweet, Skinny Steve, the fluffiest fluff to ever fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8428531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadunne2/pseuds/eadunne2
Summary: Buck’s running a little behind, but Steve can tell he’s trying to gulp down a cup of coffee in keeping with their morning ritual, and burning the shit out of his tongue in the process. “Easy soldier. The coffee’s not going anywhere.”“Shut up, ya dick,” he mumbles, but Steve doesn’t miss the corners of his mouth twitching up. “I got a schedule to stick to.”“If that were true, your ass’d be out the door four minutes ago.”Bucky flicks him in the ear and sits back in his chair. “No one likes a smartass.”“Uh, except you,” Steve reminds him, sipping his own coffee calmly. “Is that a bruise on your hand?” He leans closer to discern the blue stain on Bucky’s skin, but quite suddenly there is no hand resting on the table and no Bucky in the rickety kitchen chair, because both the blue hand and the man attached to it are darting out the front door. “Late! Gotta go, see ya for dinner.”His knuckles are scraped to shit, but there’s no blue on his skin when he comes home. -- Steve's worried they're drifting apart. Bucky's obsessed with the color blue. Everyone's a little jealous.





	

**Author's Note:**

> “The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.”  
> ― John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice
> 
> To tide you over while I'm finishing up the other one.

Bucky’s obsessed with color. Playbills discarded on the sidewalk. The ocean. Bright, crisp dresses on the racks in the storefronts. He’ll sit for hours on the sill of their living room window, smoking too damn many cigarettes and watching the sun mozy it’s way down between the buildings to nestle in the horizon, eyes never still, always seeking, tracking. His fingers move too, little flutters and flourishes when he thinks Steve’s not looking.

Steve’s always looking.

So’s everyone else, to be fair. 

Steve knows he has no claim on Buck, but it doesn’t stop him grinding his teeth so hard his jaw pops whenever he catches sight of some pretty dame flirting her way under Bucky’s arm. Worse still is Bucky coming back from work, laughing shoulder to shoulder with the other men from the docks and Steve can see the way one or two of them lean their hips too far towards him, press too close, laugh too long. 

Not that Steve blames them - Bucky’s magnetic in the way the pictures and papers tell men they’re supposed to be. He’s broad shouldered and quick witted and sumptuously at ease in his skin. Women adore his humor and charm, and men admire his ability to converse on just about any subject so long as religion stays out of it. On days when that possessive tension creeps in, Steve reminds himself there are other facets of James Barnes which only he is privy to. He reminds himself he’s lucky.

He’s lucky to have Buck so close, even if his best friend looks him in the eye less and less as the years go by. Most men would’ve moved in with their girl by now, but Buck doesn’t stick with one woman for long, and Steve doesn’t go with any. He has everything he needs.

Their apartment’s drafty, but when Steve wakes with a hacking cough, Buck manhandles him in front of the woodstove and wraps them up together in an old wool blanket, curling around Steve’s back while their chests and cheeks turn rosy. They stay up too late at least three nights out of seven, arguing about politics and literature and whether or not Bucky should find a damn job that doesn’t send him home torn to pieces. On Sundays, they go to mass dressed in the only nice clothes they own, and before they step out the door Bucky always straightens Steve’s tie while avoiding his eyes, then claps him on the shoulder, fingers burning a pattern into Steve’s skin that tingles all the way to the chapel. When Buck comes home with blisters and burns, Steve dresses them tenderly, talking shit the whole time. Some days they disappear into their separate rooms before sundown for some alone time; Steve has no idea what causes the small shuffling scratches he hears from Buck’s space. In the mornings they make breakfast and read the paper on the stoop, burning their tongues on chicory coffee and leaning together for warmth in the chill of dawn. 

Steve brings in money, too, selling his artwork - illustrations for textbooks, covers for dimestore novels, advertisements. Bucky often voices relief that the profession doesn’t require Steve to leave the apartment very often. Steve grumbles that he’s not a baby, he can handle it, but secretly he’s glad, too. The illness gets better each year, but he’s still not as steady out there as he'd like, and his lungs don’t always cooperate, what with exhaust and smoke and cold. No matter how fond he is of the smell of cigarettes.

Buck fulfills the friendly duty of complementing Steve’s work, which Steve will never not roll his eyes at, but he asks good questions too, about the composition of a piece, or shading, or color pallet, interested and informed in a way that makes Steve wonder how Bucky knows so damn much about art. Maybe it’s just rubbed off on him after years of living with an artist. 

Once Steve notices Bucky’s fascination with color, he can't seem to stop seeing it. Buck smiling at bright candy or wrapping paper, plucking leaves from the trees in the park to run his fingers over them, and shining the rare apples they buy into glossy scarlet with a rough cloth. 

Steve can appreciate an artistic obsession. 

He’s always been more of a black and white kind of guy, pencil shading on grainy paper. His world is defined. Factual. He is more than his illness, but he’ll always be ill. His mother was the most perfect creature to inhabit the planet. Cinnamon is the best spice. And he will always love James Buchanan Barnes. His drawings are no different, circumscribed with clarity.

Buildings in his sketches loom adamantly from the pavement. The lines of Bucky’s forearms trace gentle and clean across the page. The horizon cuts perspective like a knife. Buck’s cheekbones jut proudly, casting shadows into the hollows of his cheeks. 

Bucky knows Steve can and will draw everything and anything, but until Steve leaves his damn sketchbook out, maybe Buck didn’t realize quite how much of that art was dedicated to him. 

Steve comes out of the kitchen with a bowl in each hand, freezing in the doorway when he sees Buck kneeling by the couch, sketchbook open on the cushion. 

“These are incredible,” Buck murmurs, accepting the bowl without looking up. 

“It’s...thanks. I...it’s nothing.” 

“No,” Bucky says quickly, startling as if woken from a dream. “Stevie. You make me look…”

He trails off, and Steve thinks he might be blushing. “Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t.” His voice is almost too loud, then drops to nothing as he says, “I like it.”

Steve’s stomach clenches, but he knows better than to give himself over to anything resembling hope. “That’s good,” he teases. “‘Cause I ain’t got much else to look at cooped up in here all day.” 

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll go to the beach this weekend. If you’re real nice I might even buy you an ice cream,” he grins through a mouthful of stew and Steve flips him the bird. 

“I’ll buy my own damn ice cream, thanks.”

Buck chuckles. “Alright, jesus.” He cuffs Steve’s shoulder and glances up shyly, locking eyes. It’s been so long that Steve feels it like an electric shock through his nerve endings. “Really Stevie. Those sketches. I like ‘em a lot.”

“I’m glad.” He hates that he’s whispering, but he can’t help it. 

“You could probably make a pretty penny of ‘em if you ever decide to -”

“They’re not for sale,” Steve interrupts, more roughly than he has any right to, but Buck hasn’t looked away. 

“No?”

“No.” 

Even the steam from their bowls doesn’t dare interrupt them until Bucky shakes from his perch on the floor and up to his feet so suddenly Steve jerks away, startled. 

“I -” Buck stares at the floor, then the bowl in his hands, weirdly urgent. “Thanks for dinner. I gotta -” And with a vaguely apologetic look, he disappears down the short hall and into his room. 

Steve watches him go, unsettled. 

Bucky’s grumpy the next morning, quieter than usual, but they still sit together on the stoop, glued at the hip, just like always.

“You good, princess?” Steve grunts into his mug.

“Peachy,” Buck snips back and Steve grins. 

They get to the beach early, and it isn’t crowded at all, so Bucky and Steve have the stretch of golden sand to themselves. They take full advantage, wandering slowly down the shore, shoes off, stopping to prod at shells or tufts of long sea grass. They’re silent, mostly, and Steve feels contentment like waves rolling off his shoulders. 

Eventually, they find a dune to settle on, and plop down, staring out over the expanse of water and sky. 

“Thanks for this, Buck,” Steve breathes, letting air out to take more in. “This is damn near perfect.”

“‘Course, Stevie. You’re welcome.” He’s smiling silly and sweet, the bravado he wears so convincingly disappearing into the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Steve’s fingers twitch with the urge to capture the look in pencil, but he makes a mental note instead, and sinks back into the sand. 

“We should do this more often.”

“Anytime you like, Buck. I’m all yours.”

Buck eyes him almost nervously, then something shifts in his expression and he blinks back to the azure sky, back to Steve, to the clouds again, frowning and worrying his lip.

“Bucky?” Steve asks hesitantly, and Buck’s expression clears, though he stares hard for one more second like he’s trying to memorize something, then shakes his head. 

“Sorry. My brain’s mush today. Wanna see if anyplace sells ice cream this early?”

A week later they’re in the kitchen, and Buck’s running a little behind, but Steve can tell he’s trying to gulp down a cup of coffee in keeping with their morning ritual, and burning the shit out of his tongue in the process. 

“Easy soldier. The coffee’s not going anywhere.”

“Shut up, ya dick,” he mumbles, but Steve doesn’t miss the corners of his mouth twitching up. “I got a schedule to stick to.”

“If that were true, your ass’d be out the door four minutes ago.”

Bucky flicks him in the ear and sits back in his chair. “No one likes a smartass.”

“Uh, except you,” Steve reminds him, sipping his own coffee calmly. “Is that a bruise on your hand?” He leans closer to discern the blue stain on Bucky’s skin, but quite suddenly there is no hand resting on the table and no Bucky in the rickety kitchen chair, because both the blue hand and the man attached to it are darting out the front door. 

“Late! Gotta go, see ya for dinner.”

His knuckles are scraped to shit, but there’s no blue on his skin when he comes home. 

Bucky never brings girls back to their apartment, but sometimes he’ll come home late smelling of perfume and whiskey, and while it’s usually a favorite hobby, Steve finds he has a hard time watching Buck unlace his boots by at the door on nights like those. 

The summer creeps in slow at first, then all at once with a wallop. Steve spends most of his time without a shirt, and Bucky starts stripping down to his underwear the second he gets home from work. Steve’s not complaining. 

Neither is Buck. Every once in awhile Steve will catch him staring, usually when Steve’s back is turned making dinner at the stove, or reaching up to grab a book from a high shelf. He wonders if he’s gotten skinnier, or maybe he’s put on some muscle, or maybe Buck’s just staring off into space.

Buck never mentions the long looks, but Steve can barely breathe with aching to touch him, to run fingers over his clavicle, down the curve of his spine. When the city sighs itself asleep and Bucky slumps in the windowsill with a smoke, inviting the moonlight to glisten against the sweat on his skin, Steve wants to taste him so bad he almost can’t stand it, and though he knows Buck likes his company, some nights he has to retreat to his room. He lies on the floor, bathed in the same moon, though much less artfully, and tries not to think. 

He’d feel worse about it if Bucky didn’t do his fair share of disappearing. They spend so much time together there’s an unspoken rule of privacy in regards to their personal spaces. Neither man ever sets foot into the other’s room, unless Buck’s taking care of Steve, and even then, he gives fair warning. Steve hasn’t even seen the inside of his best friend’s room in more than two years, and he tries to make his peace with it. Bucky deserves his privacy. 

One miraculous day that isn’t sweltering they go for a walk, ambling down the sidewalks of Brooklyn. They buy fruit from a stand with the money from one of Steve’s recent commissions, and tease each other mercilessly all the way to the park. It feels like home. 

“You’re gonna be famous some day,” Buck says, nudging him in the ribs. 

Steve’s sure he’s blushing, but he hides the smile. “Eh.”

“You will.” He sounds so confident. “Wish I had any sort of artistic touch.”

“You do,” Steve protests. Buck draws hysterical little cartoons, usually in the margins of their newspapers, or on the very corners of practice pages in Steve’s sketchbooks, little sailor men with pipes or women on bikes or dogs chasing balloons. They capture a sort of spirit Steve can never quite pin down, and he’d be jealous if he wasn’t so enamored with them. 

“Not like you though. Your stuff is so…” He trails off, frustrated. “And I can’t even…”

“Can’t even what?”

Steve’s watching him so carefully he doesn’t even realize how close they’ve gotten, enough that he can see the apple juice shining on Buck’s bottom lip as he takes a shallow breath, tilting his head to meet Steve’s eyes. There’s a second where Steve almost leans in, almost takes what’s not his, and then Bucky’s glance flicks upward to the nearly opalescent sky above them. Immediately, his eyes return to Steve’s, but the spell is broken, and Steve steps back before he can do anything stupid. Where does Buck get off having a mouth so beautiful as that? It’s not fair. 

His movement seems to jar Bucky, who says, “Nothing. You will be though, mark my words. Galleries and shit.” He sounds almost forlorn, then grins roguishly. “I’ll be first in line.”

They continue on, arguing amiably all the way back home, and Steve thinks it’s a perfect day until Buck disappears into his room. Maybe Steve’s not as good company as he thinks he is. 

Peggy Carter is the managing editor for one of the publications Steve works for. She’s indomitable, feisty and brazen, and has to be as a woman in her position. He likes her a lot, so when they’re leaving the office at the same time and happen to be walking the same direction, he keeps pace with her.

She’s a fine conversationalist, engaging and amusing, and Steve finds himself relieved at the distraction. He hadn’t really realized how much of his brain has been dedicated to mulling over his best friend until that weight is lifted, however briefly. 

“Bruckmeister’s an asshole,” she grins. “But he’s the best salesman this side of the Mississippi, so I’ll make do.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Steve protests. “He has no right treating you like that.”

“Plenty of men do things they’ve no right to, Steve.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” he grits out. She slows her gait, observing him. 

“No. It doesn’t. But it pays to pick your battles, and I have to, if I’m going to win the war.” 

“What does winning look like?”

She shrugs, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “More women in publishing. More women in writing. More women with a voice.”

Steve smiles warmly at her. “If they’re even half as good as you, it’ll be a favor to us all.” They draw to a stop at his apartment building. “Are you much further?”

“Not at all, only a block or so. I didn’t realize you were so close. You’ll have to come over some time - I’d love to pick your brain about that La Guardia article.”

Eagerly, he nods. “I’d love that.” He would. He’d jump at any chance to debate with someone as quick witted as her. 

“Wonderful. Thank you for dropping the prints by. It saved my secretary a trip.”

“Of course. Any time. And let me know if you need me to kick Bruckmeister’s ass, alright?” 

She laughs beautifully, then leans in to kiss him on the cheek. “Only if I can get in on it.”

“Deal,” he grins, and waves as she continues on down the sidewalk.

“Who was that?” Buck asks, and Steve whirls around to see him standing sweaty and tired and still irritatingly handsome on their front stoop.

“Peggy Carter. Editor at The Eagle.”

“She’s pretty,” Buck observes dryly, following Steve up the steps. 

“Yeah.” Steve’s voice sounds hollow even to him. “She sure is.”

“She nice?”

“Very.”

“Good for you, Stevie,” he says, opening their apartment door. 

“Good for me what?” But Buck has already disappeared. 

Steve flops down on the bed and yanks open his sketchbook irritably. He’s not going anywhere, but he wonders how much more of this his heart can take. Things have gotten strange over the past year or so, different from the easy friendship he and Buck used to wear like a second skin. Will they survive? What’ll he do if they don’t?

He’s not worried about his body, though maybe he should be, there’s no denying Bucky’s presence in his life keeps him far healthier physically than he would’ve been otherwise. He’s more worried about what would happen to his soul if he lost the beautiful man rummaging around in the neighboring room.

What is Bucky doing that’s making so goddamn much noise?

Steve ignores the nearby natural disaster through an entire sketch. Maybe Bucky had a rough day at work. But when there’s a crunch and a muffled curse, he unfolds himself from the mattress on autopilot and knocks on Bucky’s door.

“Hey,” he says.

The only answer is sudden and complete stillness. 

“Buck. What the hell’s going on in there?”

No reply.

More seriously, he repeats, “Bucky. Come on. Are you ok?” Without much wait at all he adds, “If you don’t tell me what’s going on right the fuck now I’m opening this door.”

This time, the absence of response is an answer unto itself. The door is unlocked. 

Buck is sitting on the floor, head in his hands, and Steve wants to go to him, but is immediately sidetracked. The whole fucking room is covered in color. 

Canvases, newspapers, fliers ripped from boards at the post office, sketch paper, receipts - every scrap is covered in watercolor. Some are more dense, filling up the entire space, and some are more detailed than others, though most are so abstract the subject is most definitely left up to interpretation. 

There’s a page at the foot of the bed covered in watery pine and cranberry stain and though there’s no form to it, Steve knows. “Christmas.”

Buck picks his head up off his knees and follows Steve’s line of sight. He nods. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. 

Another, oranges and yellows and greens layered like lovers hands. Fall leaves. A few that might’ve been buildings. The backside of an ad stained with actual coffee, which Buck had added to. A garden. But without question, the most prominent color in the room is blue. 

Blue in every hue and saturation. Blue in shapes and against other colors and standing alone and layered with other blues. Blue against tan. Against gold. Against the text of newsprint. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” is the only thing Steve can think of to say. “These are incredible. I would’ve loved to -”

“I can’t get it right,” Buck says, back into his knees again. 

“...get it right…” Steve repeats, confused. He wants to drop to his knees and wrap his arms around Bucky’s shoulders but there’s a chance that might not be welcome, so instead he waits, almost trembling with the struggle to stay still.

Bucky sighs deeply, resigning himself to some unknown fate and then says, “Your eyes.”

“What?” 

This time Bucky unfolds himself completely, pushing up until he’s perched on the edge of the bed, and Steve hopes this means he’ll get some answers. “When we met, I was miserable.”

“What?” That’s more confusing, not less.

“My dad was an asshole.”

Quietly, Steve says, “I remember.”

“He kept me inside a lot, no toys or books, only the most basic necessities. Dull. And then you pushed me down that slide and I busted my knee and I remember thinking that ruby was a beautiful color, but it didn’t hold a candle to blue. Your eyes are so clear in my memory, more than anything else from back then, thank fuck. And I thought you were far too beautiful to keep, so I tried to memorize the color. For when you left.”

“But I stayed,” he argues.

“You were mine for so long that I stopped worrying so much,” Bucky admits sadly. “But you’re work is getting picked up more often, people know who you are, and I figured it was just a matter of time…I’m no artist, no Steve Rogers, but I thought maybe if I could capture that color before you left…”

Steve really needs to verbalize that he’s not fucking going anywhere, but he literally cannot breathe for the nervous ache in his throat, and Bucky is just getting more wound up.

“But you know what? I fucking can’t! I got Christmas and autumn and the city, but your goddamn eyes - Do you know they’re always different?” He’s shouting now, somewhat accusingly, Steve thinks. “In the sun, in the shade, in front of the fire. When you’re happy or sad or after you’ve been crying. I thought maybe the ocean. Or the sky. But it’s never just right, and what’ll I have to remember you by?” he ends, panicked, and since Steve’s vocal chords are clearly not getting with the program, he strides forward to slam their chests together, and cover Buck’s mouth with his own.

Bucky makes a helpless little noise beneath him but Steve doesn’t let up, licking those rosy lips open and biting them cherry. All this time Steve’s been drawing the curve of Buck’s scapula and the line of his jaw, thinking he was some kind of artist with a muse, and Bucky’s been scouring the natural world for a color that comes close to comparing with Steve’s eyes. Christ. The thought makes Steve crazier and he fists the collar of Buck’s shirt as if to somehow pull him closer. 

Bucky’s hands find his waist, his ribs, slide up his back to cradle Steve’s body against his own. Calloused palms sweep warm up under Steve's shirt, desperate and worshipful. When Steve finally pulls back to catch his breath Buck looks dazed.

“You ok?” Steve asks, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. 

“You kissed me.”

“You kissed back.”

“No shit.” His eyes rake over Steve’s face. “How long?”

“Forever. You?”

“And a day. If you leave -”

“I won’t.”

“Promise.” Buck cups Steve’s face gently with one hand. “I’d still like to get that color right,” he says softly.

“I’d like to keep sketching you.”

“We’ll have time.”

“All the time in the world.”

“Good.”

“Yeah?” Steve grins broadly and leans in. Bucky’s eyes are beautiful, too. Like ice, or storm clouds, or pale hydrangeas. 

“Yeah. Because before we do any of that, I’m gonna need you to kiss me again.”

**Author's Note:**

> “Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ”  
> ― Oscar Wilde


End file.
